Coupons.Coupons and more Coupons

Before you start reading: its a LONG post but very informative.

Well since my earlier post, I mentioned that I was in class looking at coupons and see what deals are the best in my area. Well I did a lot of research once I got home from school, gathered my coupons and off I went. After about an hour and 45 minutes, I got all the things I needed except for a few because Walgreens was sold out of the item I wanted, so I got a raincheck on it =)

After all my shopping the grand total was $87.15 and I only ended up paying $19.01 after coupon and club card savings. Mrs. Sykes over at Forever Yours, Semper Fi asked me to explain on how this coupon deal works. So here it goes (sorry if its a bit complicated)

Every sunday I go buy the sunday newspaper. Here in california I get the LA Times or the Orange County Register. In the middle of the newspaper it has a bunch of inserts that include: ads from target, bestbuy, walmart, cvs, walgreens you know local stores and most importantly COUPONS! Usually every sunday their are about 2 coupon inserts maybe even 3 if we get lucky. So I sit down and go through the coupon insert and see what coupons I could use. Obviously there are some you wont use but many you will. The trick to couponing is to get as many "Like" coupons as possible so that you can stock up for less. "Like" meaning the same coupons multiple times say maybe 5 of the same coupon.

You can also find other coupons online through the manufacture itself, coupon services such as CouponSuzy.com, couponing101.com and many other coupon databases (just google search coupon database) After you have the coupons you want you must go through the ads and see if any of the items you have coupons for are on sale. The trick is to see if the sale is worth using the coupon. For example, this past sunday 4/17 there was a coupon for Nivea Body wash for men and women. The coupon 's face value was $3.00. Well I searched online and found that Nivea body wash was being sold at Walmart for $3.00.
Do the math : original price $3.00 + $3.00 coupon = FREE! all you have to do is pay tax.

Another example: CVS is having a sale for Degree deodorant 2/$5.oo both men and women. Well in this past sunday's ad there was a coupon for $1.00 off each deodorant, fortunately I had 6 "Like" Coupons so I used all six of them. Usually this deodorant at CVS is about $3.49 regular. Now lets do the math: 2 deodorant for $5.00 bucks meaning that each deodorant is $2.50 - $1.00 coupon = $1.50 each! I know that it doesn't sound like much of a big discount but I sure think it was considering I always buy them at full price. So I was able to get 3 for me and 3 for the hubby. If it was NOT on sale and I didn't have a coupon then the total price would of been $20.94 without taxes of course but since It was on sale and I had coupons it was $9.00 without taxes. I saved $11.94. That's gas money right there (P.S. Gas prices are redic)

Now that I've given you some examples hopefully you can find deals in your area too and see if they are worth it. When looking at items think to yourself of what the original price of that item is and see if the sale price is discounted enough that you can use your coupon to get a bigger discount. Sometimes stuff that is on sale is only a couple of cents cheaper and its not worth it.

Another trick, I just don't shop at one place. I shop at many places that include my favorites: Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and VONS. I live in a city where all the places I have named above are in a 3 mile radius from me so its easy to get to all of them and I dont have to drive around everywhere. But for you, this may not be the case, so chose wisely. Some grocery stores double even triple your coupons...this is where it starts to get good!

In CA, Vons is the only grocery store that doubles your coupons up to $1.00. For example: Reynolds foil sale price $1.99, the coupon I have is $.50 cents off and the double the coupon so that it is $1.00. Lets do the math : $1.99 - .50 cents(x2) = $.99 final price after coupons. I suggest you check what local grocery stores in your area doubles your coupons and maybe even triples them. (Also be aware of your local grocery store coupon policy, sometimes you can only use a certain amount per transaction and what not, so check online. Most have them posted on their website)

There is more! Vons and Target and Stater Bro's have their own coupons in their weekly ad or printable coupons on their website. The good thing about these are that you can combine coupons. Meaning you can use their coupon plus your own coupon for that item and get a bigger discount but remember make sure the item is on sale and usually when they have their own store coupon its on sale.

Dont forget to get your club member savings such as CVS card, Vons club card, Ralph's club card etc.
That's all I have for now but if you have questions or if i just completely confused you shoot me an email.
dance56289 @ yahoo dot com <<--my email is spaced so that I dont spam mail from others. P.S. It's almost Wednesday here in CA only about an hour and 15 min left. On the east coast it's wednesday already so happy hump day, almost through the work week. Happy Wednesday, I know i'll be having a fantastic wednesday. Stick around I have big news, I'll be sure to post by late wednesday night =) Until Next Time ♥

Tomorrow is only a day away

Good things will happen tomorrow and I am oh so excited. For the time being I am in class not paying attention and looking for good coupon clipping services. Since i've seen the show on TLC: Extreme Couponing, I am determined to become a coupon queen. Obviously I m not going to start out with a bang and be professional like them, but if they can save money so can I. This morning before I got to school I stopped at CVS and got 3 nivea body wash, and 6 degree deodorants- 3 women and 3 men all for $10 with my coupons! It would of been $30, I saved $20! It was an awesome feeling. I still have a lot of learning to do with these coupons but I am determine to save, save, save.

P.S. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. Its only a day away!

Until Next time ♥

Homecoming preparation

Since the hubby is coming home in __days, I decided that this weekend I was going to get some stuff done. Saturday I woke up super early 5:30am to take a shower and get ready to be on the road by 7am. Why so early? The hubby bought his truck near our hometown and thats about a 45 min drive from where we live now. I wanted to get to the Ford dealer before 8am so I could be one of the first ones there to get his truck service. Wrong! When I got there, there were 6 cars in front of me and I thought I was there early. Needless to say, I was out of the dealer by 10am.

The hubby has requested I get his windows tinted. I was going to do it a long time ago but never go to it, so I decided to take it to the window tint place that morning. I dropped the truck off and my dad picked me up because the truck was not going to be ready until 4pm. There were a lot of cars/trucks waiting for tint too.

Arrived at my parents, watched a little bit of a movie on lifetime and I fell asleep. My sister came over and we went to get a mani/pedi.....which was much needed. Thank goodness for that, now my feet and hands are pretty =)

I picked the truck up and the tint looks great! Limo tint in the back and the front two windows are med. tint.
Unfortunately, in the state of CA you cannot have window tint in the front two windows, it is illegal. But everyone does it, so i got med. tint so its not that noticeable compared to the dark or limo tint. I am hoping that while driving, I dont get pulled over for the tint especially since I cannot roll the windows down for 3 days nor get a car wash so that the tint doesnt get messed up.

On a side note: I have med. tint on my Acura and about 10 months ago i got pulled over and got a fix it ticket. It was $25 ticket, I had to get my tint off and get a highway patrol officer to sign off on the ticket. I did that, but then i got the tint put back on. I refuse to drive a car without tint. The reason being i hate direct sunlight on my arms while driving and I dont like others looking at me while I am stopped at an intersection hahah.

Sunday = boring!
The only thing I did was pick up around the apartment which wasnt much since it wasnt a mess with only one person living here. Oh, I got a brazilian wax today too along with my underarms. If you don't know what a brazilian wax is its basically removal of all genital hair. It sounds painful but trust me it wasnt. On a scale from 1-10 it was about a 4. It stings for a bit but then the pain is gone. I recommend it, it makes you feel so clean and fresh. It was my first time getting one today and I was so nervous, but my experience was the best. Im sure the hubby will not mind =)

Can't wait for this week! Good things are coming and I cant wait to blog about them.

Until next time ♥

The countdown beings

Like the title of this post, the countdown to homecoming starts now! I am outrageously happy and giddy and super emotional. Now I wont say when my husband is coming home but its super soon only a matter of ___days! I got to talked to him again today and well we talked about his "best friend". If you read my last post then you'd know that I am not a fan of my husband's "best friend". My husband finally got the picture and now understands where i'm coming from with this whole best friend situation. I think it took him a whole deployment to a foreign country to realize it. So we'll see how this "best friend" thing plays out...maybe he will be searching for a new best man. Today, we also talked about how much we both would like to spend a lot more time outdoors than indoors catching up on shows and what not this spring/summer. We have decided that we are going to buy bikes and well since gas prices are high now we can bike ride everywhere. I know this sounds kinda of dumb ....like how are they going to bike ride everywhere? Well we live in a city where everything is near by. There are about 2 parks, a huge shopping center and about 2 other shopping centers that are about 1-2 miles away from us. So i think bike riding will be fun and were getting some exercise in too. We have decided to go hiking (he wasnt to fond of the idea b/c obviously Marines go on hikes and he hates them) but the hikes i want to go on are nothing compared to the hikes they do at Camp Pendleton. There are a lot of hiking trails in the area so it will be great to explore new things. He likes the idea of me becoming or at least trying to spend time outdoors because he loves nature....me not so much but i am willing to try new things...who knows i might like it.
Well that enough for me bloggers.
Until next time ♥

8 months to late

Today I got to talk to my wonderful husband! It was pretty awesome, thank goodness I took my laptop to school with me because if not I would of missed the opportunity to chat. Anyways, my husband has a friend he considers to be his "best friend" and is going to be his "Best Man" for the wedding. I personally dont care for the guy, I never liked him as a person and quite frankly I am not a fan and don't think i ever will be. He has done some shady things in the past that has made my husband upset but yet my husband still considers him his "best friend". Whatever right? What can I do about it...nothing but to voice my opinion and even then its like i am talking to air. So i dont say anything anymore. A couple of months ago I messaged his "best friend" asking him for his address because i was sending out save the dates for the wedding. I wrote this nice message asking how he was and i hope he is doing well and what not, I was being very professional. In return all i wanted was a "hey thanks here is my address, how your doing well too" WRONG! All i got was a message back with the address. Not a thank you, or a hey...hi or anything just the damn address. Well that pissed me off because i was being nice. The least he can do was " hi here my is address. have a good day." Nope! So now since my husband is coming home soon, my sister and I are having a welcome home bbq for my husband and I thought I would invite his "best friend" and some of his other friends who are not in the Corps. I sent him a message and let him know when this welcome home bbq was and all the details. Yet i never got a response back from him saying thank you, i hope to be there. Nothing yet again. Throughout deployment my husband always asked hey have you talked to "my best friend" ..."has he said anything" ....I havent got a letter from him or anything....no emails back... nothing". I know if my best friend was deployed i would write letters, send a care package, send a reply email. I know he is a guy but that dont mean he cant reply to an email. Hell, when my brother was deployed his best friend send him care packages and 3 letters telling him that he supports him and that he cant wait until he comes home so they can drink together. So i dont understand why my husband "best friend" never cared or asked how deployment was going or anything. Well guess what??? Today i get a message from him asking me this ...exact quote" Hey so when is ____suppose to be back? I wanted to throw my phone across the room when i saw it. Oh now that he knows my husband is coming home and that he will be local, they can hang out and do guy stuff....he wants to know the exact date of when he is coming home! NO! You dont get to know when he is coming home and you dont get to be there at the parade deck to welcome him home. Where the hell have you been for the past 8 months while he has been in hell and could of used some moral support from his own best friend! Obviously not there, so you dont get to be there now! Your 8 months to damn late! <<--- i wish i could have said all of this in a message but i didnt .....for my husband's sake. This gets under my skin so much and i wish i could tell him but because he is my husband's "best friend" I have to keep the peace. (GRR!) I may be overreacting but this is how i feel about this situation and i have no other way of getting it out than by blogging. I sure hope his "best friend" shows up to the bbq and if he doesn't that will show my husband that his so called "best friend" isn't worth it. (I kinda hope he doesnt show up too, but then again my husband will feel let down and i dont want him to feel that way either) Its a lose/lose situation. Until next time ♥

Love LOVE love Wednesday!

Wednesday! Probably the best day of the week and its hump day so the week is almost over. Thank goodness. This morning I had to pick up my husband's truck from Pep Boys because while i was driving yesterday it got a nut stuck in its rear tire and i am pretty sure it was going to become a flat tire. So I took it to Pep boys last night to get it fixed and they were so busy that they told me to leave it overnight. The good thing is that Pep Boys is across the street from our apt. in a shopping center so it was easy to leave it there and walk home. Anyways, I got to Pep Boys this morning to pick up the truck and the guy hands me the paperwork along with the keys and says "There is no charge, Thank your husband for his service". WOW! I was shocked. I insisted in paying and they said no, and i was on my way out. That was really nice of them, then i got to thinking how did they know my husband was in the service? DUH! The base decal located on the windshield. That made my day. Then around 11am this morning i got the best phone call ever and email. My husband's HOMECOMING DATE AND TIME! eeeekkkkk (jumping up and down) he will finally be here in a matter of ___ days. I can't believe that after 8 months of stress, crying, worrying and all these different emotions he is finally coming home. This deployment has been one of the worst we have ever gone through and one of the worst in Marine Corps history. We've lost 29 KIA and over 100 wounded and I am so glad that the battalion is coming home. My life will be complete once again. And for all of you Milspouses out there who are going through a deployment....time will fly by....once things start to roll again and you get back into the groove of things it will fly. I didn't think it would, the first month felt like a lifetime then shortly after the ball just kept rolling and soon enough you will be where I am...getting ready for that big day HOMECOMING!

Until next time ♥

Mixed feelings

Well i been away since the last week of March. Its been crazy trying to get everything done for homecoming. I finally moved into my new apartment, we are about 15 minutes away from base which is awesome for the hubby so its not a long drive as it was before. Anyways, moving week was hectic. The apartment is now furnished and decorated and feels like home. School is driving me insane. Only 5 more weeks and the semester is over, can you say SUMMER! geez i cannot wait, but for now its busy busy busy non stop and i cant concentrate when all i can think about is my hubby coming home in a matter of days. Tonight it was H&S homecoming. It was great, so many families, loved ones and even the Patriot Guard Riders. All in all i feel really blessed to be with the battalion my husband is in. We have a wonderful support group supporting our Marines. There is so much more I want to blog about but I am so very sleepy. Ill be back tomorrow.

P.S. I have 2 followers! This is Awesome, considering I am new to blogging! Eeeekkk!

Until next time ♥